Answer:
i, Too is a short, free verse poem that focuses on African American identity within the dominant white culture of the USA. It encapsulates the history of oppression of black people by means of slavery, denial of rights and inequality.
Inspired by Walt Whitman's 'I Sing the Body Electric', Hughes must have intended the poem's first line as a contrasting clarion call - the black person is worthy to be an American too, to sing of the country that they help build.
The poem's first person male speaker could be young or old but is sending out the still relevant message of hope for change. By placing the speaker in a house, metaphorically the USA, Hughes brings the issue of black rights into the personal domestic space of the American people.
This connects directly back to Abraham Lincoln, the American civil war and the role of African American slaves in the great houses of plantation owners. Lincoln himself said that: 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.'
